A team of researchers believes that artificial intelligence could play a big role in the world's battle against the coronavirus.
AJ Venkatakrishnan, director of scientific research and partnerships at AI start-up Nference conducted a test beyond the boundaries of tradition. As the pandemic heated up in the past months, he gathered 10,967 samples of novel coronavirus and gathered genetic data, and fed them in an AI machine.
Artificial Intelligence on coronavirus detection
He did not have an exact plan to where the study will end, not even a hypothesis of his study. All he had in mind was that the study would somehow expose any of the virus's vulnerability that medical science could target though medicine or therapy.
After doing the study for several months, he discovered that the latest and newest samples that he had were different from its predecessors. The sample showed the snippet of a DNA code, "RRARSVAS."
Since the study resembles the pattern of a protein that helps the human body maintain fluid balance and regulate salt, Venkatakrishnan found hope of finding the weakness in the novel coronavirus.
The scientist started to wonder if the changes would permit the virus to act as a Trojan Horse. If so, it will be easy for them to expose any weakness that the virus has and the necessary response and caution that everyone should take.
Today, researchers are actually merging the power of human brains with artificial intelligence to solve the biggest coronavirus mysteries. Some of them were questions on why some people are super-spreaders while others do not transport the virus at all.
According to The Telegraph, Jason Moore, director of the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania said that today mankind has a bigger fighting chance due to AI and machine learning. He added that if the pandemic happened 20 years back, the entire human race has fewer chances of survival.
Meanwhile, Isaac Kohane, a Harvard bioinformatics researcher believes that having the AI not only boosts the speed, but it also saves time and even lives as well.
Kohane added that it is not that people do not learn from the data and do not take advantage of the AI. He said that some people just do not learn fast enough.
Detecting COVID 19 through cough sound
One concrete proof that AI could help in combating the COVID 19 is the most recent coronavirus update that surface on the internet. A group of researchers reportedly developed a new artificial intelligence that would detect the coronavirus by merely listening to a person's cough.
Brian Subirana, a scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) lab said that the way a person with COVID 19 coughs is different even if he is asymptomatic. Meaning with the help of AI, detecting coronavirus through the sound of the cough is possible.
The researchers conducted the test on 4000 voice recordings. The people were forced to cough and the AI successfully identify who among the cough heard had a virus, according to BBC.
